


A Breath More Holy

by DinosaurTheology



Series: Temptation I Can't Resist [4]
Category: NCIS
Genre: Bittersweet, Dreams, F/M, Father-Daughter Relationship, Ghosts, Israel, Lost Love, Love, Parent-Child Relationship, Short & Sweet, True Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-30
Updated: 2016-05-30
Packaged: 2018-07-11 03:32:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7026817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DinosaurTheology/pseuds/DinosaurTheology
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony can sense Ziva's ghost all around him... or at least that's what it feels like. She is all over the restored farmhouse he shares with his daughter, in the corners of his mind, and most of all in Tali's big, beautiful eyes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Breath More Holy

**Author's Note:**

> NCIS isn't mine but I've watched it from the beginning even though during the pilot my mom's jaw locked and we had to take her to the hospital--we ended up watching it, and Frasier, in the waiting room. True story. So I hope this is a good little coda to Tony and Ziva's story, or at least a nice chapter in it.

He has grown a curling beard, shot through with grey, that stretches across his chest like a spade. The locals who speak Hebrew, according to his friend Yeheskel Gold, refer to him jokingly as Avraham Ovinu because of it. Mostly blue-collar types who have toiled in the blasting sun all day for decades, they think that it is the affectation of an American who has moved to Israel and modified his appearance to fit what he thinks a rugged, individualistic homesteader should look like. He doesn't really mind. That which is ridiculous poses no threat and that which poses no threat often passes beneath notice.

Those few Arab farmers and herdsmen who live nearby refer to him, according to Yeheskel, as Aldubb al Qadim. He is amazed at how many languages Yeheskel seems to understand, from French to Farsi and even Bedouin dialects, like Sulaym of Libya and Tunisia, that few care to learn about and fewer know well. All the better, he supposes, to run his "Hotties of the IDF" instagram page and respond to the needs of fans around the world.

Aldubb al Qadim means "old bear," according to this now retired Rav samal, and Tony find that he sort of likes it in a way. He feels like a grumbling, lumbering ursine when he awakens and drags his big frame out of bed, stiff from years of hard work in law enforcement. It takes so much longer to get moving now than when he was ten, fifteen or twenty years younger that he wonders if it is possible, indeed, that he is a totally different man. He is certain, in some ways, that it is true.

It's because of the ghosts.

One ghost, in particular, though more than a few float across his field of vision in the gleaming morning light, oppressive afternoon sun or cool evening. Kate has visited on more than one occasion, and it depresses him that he finds the features of her face fleeing in his mind and must be refreshed by reference to a creased picture that's been at home in his wallet for going on a decade. Jenny has dropped by a few times too, and Jeanne at least once. He is fairly sure that she is a bittersweet memory, though, since doesn't a ghost have to number among the deceased?

It is the kind of question that only a dedicated Qabbalist or hookah philosopher could answer. Thus the freelance security consultant (a man must make a living for himself and his little neshama, after all) leaves it alone and concentrates on the one who is specter, memory and the fondest dream he could ever imagine.

He's glanced her over his shoulder, doing something simple like folding laundry and humming or softling singing something like Zehava Ben's "Pashut VeAmiti." He can see one small foot, bare beneath the hem of a pair of lavender sleep pants adorned with images of crescent moons and leaping rabbits, tap to the swift beat. Another time she might be in the kitchen at the counter chopping peppers, onions and fresh tomatoes for shakshouka. He is certain, at least once, that he has seen her nick the tip of a finger and growl, "Harah!" He wants badly, so badly, to kiss the drops of blood away from that fingertip. He knows he can't, though. No man among the living can kiss a ghost, after all.

That would be ridiculous.

It is the worst when she visits in a dream, dark hair spread in a fan across the pillow in front of him. He's tempted to wrap his arms around something more insubstantial than mist and then feels his heart slam against the inside of his ribcage. It struggles, flutters like a captive bird, screams to escape what logic demands must come. For often dreams are nightmares. When she turns, if she turns, he knows that he will see the ruin fire made of her and not the well loved curves of cheek and full, pouting lips. Neither the widows peak nor eyes deep and dark like all the secrets that ever lay between them will be there. It's a silly thing to be afraid of, actually. Nothing is there, after all. Not really. Not anymore.

He does know, however, that this is one face--in dream or frigid sweat soaked night terror--that he never will need a picture in his wallet to remember. There are a few, sure, but he can summon each line of frown or smile without any effort whatsoever. There's a good reason for this, too, even beyond the gut rending obsession that an optimistic soul might call true love.

He doesn't need a picture, Tony knows, because Tali is there with him. When she smiles the ghost smiles and the sparkle in her large, honey brown eyes is the same. And when this tiny girl child, so small that she seems like a porcelain doll in his big hands, speaks... something breaks apart in him. She can murmur, in her sleep, "Abba," or "Ima" and it is a breath more holy than the aleph with which God spoke this crummy universe into being.

It isn't the finest of all worlds--that would be the three of them together, living and loving in this austere, beautiful countryside. And then, when this gets him down, he feels Tali at night sleeping, curled against his side with lips pursed and a little string of spittle running from the corner of her mouth. He knows that his blessed, beautiful rephaite can rest well wherever she may be with a confidence known only to the well-loved dead that her last legacy, the little spark of her that remains to him, is safe and sound with another who would die for her but--even more importantly--has made the choice to alter his life radically to live for her.

 


End file.
